CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL. 79 



and without exaggeration be compared to the purchase of a 

 fine horse, and then perpetually to exclude him from food and 

 drink. 



Here is the great and fatal error with a large portion who 

 attempt the cultivation of fruit. We may not incorrectly 

 divide these into three classes: 



1. Those who, having procured their trees, destroy them at 

 once by drying them in the sun or wind, or freezing them in 

 the cold, before setting out. 



2. Those who destroy them by crowding the roots into small 

 holes cut out of a sod, where, if they live, they maintain a 



FIG. 113. Neglected Trees. FIG. 114. Well Cultivated Orchard. 



stunted and feeble existence, like the half-starved cattle of a 

 neglectful farmer. 



3. Others set them out well, and then consider their labors 

 as having closed. They are subsequently suffered to become 

 choked with grass, weeds, or crops of grain some live and 

 linger, others die under the hardship ; or else are demolished 

 by cattle, or broken down by the team which cultivates the 

 ground. 



The annexed illustrations are a fair exhibition of the differ- 

 ence in results between neglected management, as seen on 

 the left, and good cultivation, on the right, as seen in trees 

 five or ten years after transplanting (Figs. 113 and 1 14). 



A neighbor purchased fifty fine peach-trees, handsomely 

 rooted, and of vigorous growth ; they were well set out in a 

 field containing a fine crop of heavy clover and timothy. The 

 following summer was dry ; and a luxuriant growth of meadow- 

 grass nearly hid them from sight. What was the consequence? 

 Their fate was precisely what every farmer would have pre- 

 dicted of as many hills of corn, planted and overgrown in a 

 thick meadow very few survived the first year. 



Another person bought sixty, of worse quality in growth ; be 



